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In Memoriam - Claudio Naranjo

Posted by michaelg, July 25, 2019

Claudio NaranjoNovember 24, 1932 – July 12, 2019

Claudio Benjamín Naranjo Cohen was a Chilean psychiatrist and pioneer in the integration of psychotherapy, spirituality, and psychedelic experiences. He was a developer of the Enneagram of Personality, founder of the Seekers After Truth (SAT) Institute, and author of numerous books on psychotherapy, consciousness, personality, and education, including The Healing Journey.

Naranjo was one of the three successors named by Fritz Perls, the founder of Gestalt Therapy. He became a key figure at Esalen, and the close friend of Carlos Castaneda. In the 1960s, Naranjo introduced ibogaine and harmaline into psychotherapy as a “fantasy enhancing drug.” Naranjo made a special journey by canoe up the Amazon River to study yage with the Indigenous peoples there. He brought back samples of this drug and published the first scientific description of the effects of its active alkaloids.

In 1987 he brought the SAT Institute to Spain, with a program that includes Gestalt therapy, applications of the Enneagram of Personality, interpersonal meditation, music as a therapeutic resource, guided self-insight, and communication processes. Since then, the SAT program has expanded to Italy, Brazil, Mexico, and Argentina, and more recently to France and Germany.

"In this remarkable book, Chilean-American psychiatrist Claudio Naranjo takes us on a scientific adventure through his groundbreaking research into new experiential methods of psychotherapy facilitated by psychedelic substances.